"A Palladian Dawn"

This mural covers a corner of the Inter-Continental Borobudur Hotel's lobby adjacent to a staircase leading to a restaurant.  It is located in central Jakarta, Java; and it was commissioned as part of the complete remodeling of the 1960s-era hotel-structure.  A "Mediterranean" theme was requested.  The imagery combines Andreas Palladio's idealized versions of the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian architectural orders.

In his youth, Baxter had seen Louis Comfort Tiffany's and Maxfield Parrish's "Dream Garden" - a  large leaded glass mural in the lobby of Philadelphia's Curtis Publishing headquarters.  And he had been intrigued by the visual dilemma that results when a fragmented medium such as leaded glass or mosaic is used to a trompe l'oeil effect:  The visual tension is unresolvable and it results in a curious pictorial paradox.  The Tiffany-Parrish glass mural was the direct inspiration for "A Palladian Dawn."